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E 685 

.ni4 

Copy 1 



ISHED BY THE TOLEDO BLA.DE CO., TOLEDO, OHIO. PRICE, TEN CENTS. 




COHFESSIOIJS OP A REPEHTAlTr POLITICIAN 



A- Story of Fifty Years Hence. 



TIME, A. D. 1930. 



Author of 



Andersonville: a Story of Southern Prisons;" "A File 
of Infantrymen." 

[COI*YR,IG-MT, 1S80.] 



CHAPTER I 

THK PRIDE THAT GOK TH BEFORE A. FALL. 

' Yer', my dear grandson, you eurmise 
cO:.*rectly. , I can remember the com- 
mencement of this most unhappy epoch. 
I can remember when, in its internal 
prosperity and the esteem of foreign 
powers, this was the foremost Nition of 
all the world, instead of being, as now, 
ground in tearful huaailiaiion between 
fae upper and nether millstones of mis- 
'-lie a home and dishonor abroad. And 
there is a wormwood in that remem- 
braEC'3 that has embittered every day of 
my 50 years of manhood, for it was I 
and such as I who are alone responsible 
for having brot about the woeful 
change." 

"You, grandpa? Why, that cannot 
be?" 

' But it is true, little as you may be 
able to understand it. God alone knows 



KoTE.— In the spelling of this story many of 
the reforms urged by the Spelling Reformers 
have beeu adoptei, in order to make ic conform 
more nearly to its alleged date when all those 
^%f orms, and more too, will doubtless be in com- 
mon use. 



how fervently I have wisht it were oth- 
erwise. Ha, too, only knows the myriad 
of excuses and apologies with which I 
have attempted to palliate in my own 
eyes my share in precipitating that 
deluge of woes upon a smiling land. 
Put tiat cushioned ottoman under my 
swollen rignt foot. There I there! steady 
now; that'll do. Thanks. Heavensl who 
would have thot so many gouty twinges 
lurkt beneath the sweet bouquet of those 
delightful Lake Erie wines? Now, that 
my eyes and ears ms^y have rest too, 
hurl at that Wagnerian organ -grinder's 
head yon cup, decorated as a present 
for my 72nd birthc^ay by your maiden 
aunt's too tardily trained fingers. Ah, 
you didn't hit him; (no young man can 
throw well since the introduction of 
curved pitchint^,) but I hear the cup 
shiver on the pavement, and the 'Death 
Wail of the Valkyries' ceases, so there is 
much gained. Now sit dawn, and I 
will try to tell you the lamentable atory. 
"It was just a half a century ago. Ex 
cept that 'Pinafore' had prevailed thru 
the States for three successive seasons, 
and in some badly-smitten sections the 



.-Cr, 



2 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMKRICAN REPUBLIC 



'Turkish Patrol' had followed as a sec- 
ondary consequence, the country was 
enjoying the most remarkable season ol 
prosperity it had ever known. For 20 
glorious years the Rt publicans had been 
in power, and had ruled the land as the 
Judges had the seed ol Abraham in Is 
rael's palmiest days. Their wars had 
been like the struggles ol the elements; 
thtir peace the teeming of fruitful Sum- 
mer beneath benignant skies. Their 
drawing of the sword was as the calling 
down the wrath of God upon the injus- 
tice of the mighty and wrongdoing in 
high places. Their triumphs were the 
victories of purer manners, better laws. 
At each the Nation made a grand 
stride forward, and their opponents, 
who had vainly essayed to check the 
wheels of progress, gnasht their teeth in 
rage, and yelled maledictions, but always 
ended by running forward to the new 
position gained, and again bracing their 
shoulders against the advancing car. 

•'It is hard to believe that this was 
only 50 years ago It would seem that since 
then there had swept over us such cen- 
turies of desolation as rolled over wealthy 
and well peopled Asia Minor in the 
shadow of the horsetail banners of the 
canquering Tuiks. But the application 
of a very rudimentary rule of arithmetic 
shows me that between 1880 and 1930 
can be but 50 years, and besides your 
grandmother has made not a few pre- 
parations for the celebration of our 
rapidly approaching golden wedding. 

"Half a century ago I was where you 
are to day — at the dawn of that man- 
hood in wnich Mr. Bulwer turgidly in- 
forms us there is no such word as 
'fail.' I was 21. My principal posses- 
sions were an undivided interest in the 
affections of a sweet girl graduate, and 
a stock of self-sufficiency enuf to inflate 
the biggest balloon you ever saw. Ah, 
how much I knew— or thot I did, which 
amounts to the same thing. I felt a 
genuine pity for those who did not at 
once perceive the full extent of. my in- 
tellectual superiority, and it saddened 
me to think of their humiliation when 
some of my future achievements should 
awaken them to a recognition of their 
blindness concerning my merits. 

"No, do not redden. That is a feeling 
common to youth of that ag«. It has 



always been, and doubtless always will be 
so. It comes to the young man a little 
in advance of his first mustache, and 
b( gins to vanish rapidly in those stUi 
hours of the night, when, in night shirt 
and slippers he paces the chilly floor with 
his howling first born, and attempts to 
soothe the Utile shricker's tortured 
bowels by drafts from his mother's kid- 
glove cleaning berzine, mistaken for 
balm bringing paregoric. 

' Sach was my confidence in my own 
infallibility that when I came to cast my 
first vote I not only rejected advice and 
counsel, but I scorned them as reflec- 
tions upon my sense and judgment, 
and was the rather impelled to act coun- 
ter thereto. 

"It seemed to me that things had hith- 
erto gone on in the world in a very un- 
satisfactory, slip shod fashion, while 
waiting for clear sighted young reform- 
ers like myself to arise and set them 
aright. Now, again I beg that you will not 
blush so. These are not personal allu- 
sions. They are generalizations, con- 
ceived first subjectively, and afterwards 
broadened by observation, until they 
were found to comprise all mankind in 
what may be termed the beginning of the 
gUk Hat and Switch Cane Age. 

" I had become very weary of the de- 
nunciation of the Democratic party as an 
organization of evil and designing men — 
who had done great wrongs, and medi- 
tated still greater ones. It seemed pre- 
posterous to nold them accountable for 
things done 10 or 20 years before — and to 
insist that because some of their number 
held once made mistakes the whole party 
should be forever barred from place and 
power. 

"It was in vain that my father, who had 
been Colonel of an infantry regiment 
during the War of the Rebellion, strove 
to bring me once more into accordance 
with his views. It was in vain that he 
recounted to me again the wicked deeds 
of the party in support of Slavery, and 
its myriad heinous acts during the War — 
the acts of those in the South who sup- 
ported the Rebellion with arms, and in 
the field— the acts of those in the Nortti 
who crawled in the slime of treason, nke 
the foul serpents thojr were, and struck 
with poisonous fangs at the heels of tne 
defenders of the Nation. 



4 



C0NKES8IONS OF A Uh,PJiNTAM" I'oLI litl.\'<i, 



"He was a good man, and I honored 
him; tbat he had been wise in his day 
and generation I well knew; but I was 
equally certain that the newer, higher 
light vouchsafed me made that day and 
generation very obsolete. I had even the 
temerity to say to him, one day, at the 
close of a heated discussion: 

" 'It is quite natural for you to feel as 
you do. The loss of your leg at Chic- 
amauga, and the starving to death in Au- 
dersonville of Uncle Ned naturally em- 
bittered both you and mother very much, 
but— (here 1 walkt over to the parlor 
mirror and studied my downy mustach 
with complacent satisfaction) these rank- 
ling animosities are unworthy of our no- 
bler manhood. They are quite out of 
place in those who aspure to be consid- 
ered as the cultured men of today. It 
belongs to us of heroic views to assuage 
the smoldering embers of that unhappy 
time, and Wipe Out all traces of Sectional 
Bitterness,' and I daintily rearranged 
my hair, which I had not yet been able 
to accustom to being parted in the 
middle. 

"But once before — when the news came 
that a dear friend of my father's had de- 
ceived him, — had I seen there such a 
look as now came into his face. 

" 'Is it possible that a son of mine has 
learned to prate this cant of treason so 
glibly?' he said in amazement. 

" 'Excuse me, father," said I, haught- 
ily. 'Treason' is a very harsh term to 
apply to such political sentiments as do 
not exactly accord with your own. It is 
growing very much out of fashion in the 
best circles.' 

" 'It is possibly presumption in me to 
inquire what circles you have discovered 
that are so superior to those your father 
and his friends move in?' he said, with 
a sneer that lasht me until I forgot the 
respect due him, and answered holly ; 

"You are perfectly right to ask, and I 
am glad to have the opportunity of in- 
forming you. They are composed of 
those who have out grown the hatreds of 
of War, and who, with enlarged views 
and true generosity, believe in drawing 
the vail of oblivion over the past mis- 
takes of our once erring brethren, and 
so restore place and fraternal feeling to 
our country. To feel as you feel was 
probably quite rigfet in 1864, but you 



will \ ( urself sometimes see that it is ex 
ceedingly out of place in 188n. I am 
sorry to pait company wih jou pol- 
itically, but, I feel that the ri.siDg gener- 
ation to which I beloEg is to be more 
progressive than any of its predecessor*, 
and that one of our highest missions is 
to heal our Country's wounds and hurts, 
and Wipe Out Sectional Bitterness, 
which, you must admit you have sii^nally 
failed to do.' 

" 'Great Heavens! to think the terrible 
lessons of the past should so soon be for- 
gotten I" said my father with heartfelt 
sorrow. 

" 'Ghost of JuHus Caesar," I retorted, 
" 'why is it that some people never karn 
or forgtt anything? and the stock of 
ideas that they get in youth is made to 
last them their whole lives? This is what 
bars the way of all progress.' 

"The pressure of a half idea upon a 
young brain always destroys its balance," 
said he, sorrowfully. 

"And an old one can never recover 
from warps received in earlier years," I 
returned. 

This discussion with my father was a 
sample of the many I had with others 
who, like him, viewed with amazement 
and pain my departure from the path 
which the terrible experience of the past 
had mapt out for them as the only one 
which led away from untold evila 

But the more they labored with me, the 
more boundless became my self-conceit, 
the more inflexible became my determi- 
nation to adhere to the plan I had mariLt 
out for myself — the more confident my 
belief that by so doing I would inau- 
gurate a glorious career for myself that 
would overwhelm these old fogies with 
confusion, and place me at one bound 
among the most honored and applauded 
of the Nation. Ah, what glories gild 
and spangle youth's radiant realm of 
imagination 1 

"Of course, many like me were to be 
found everywhere. The whole genera- 
tion which had then arrived at a voting 
age had been born about tne time that 
the War began. It had past its whole 
infancy in childish unconsciousness of 
vhe agony— brot on by D ^mocratic sin— 
ihat was then cracking the heartstrings of 
the people. It had prattled over its spelling 

Npks and marbles while the Nation was 



liECLlNE AND FALL OF THE AMERICA.N REPUBLIC. 



undergoing the fierce pangs of the after- 
birth of Reconetructiou, and dallied with 
its base ball and incipient flirtations while 
Tiesumption was b.ing fought to the bit- 
ter end. Only after the victory had 
htGL flually won did it awaken lo the 
consideration of public affairs, and then 
it j<^3ted at scars as all do who never 
felt a wound. The lingering smoke of 
the battle offended its esthetic nostrils. 
The earnestness of the victors in the 
heady fight jarred upon its teachings 
of 'gentleoainly repose.' The denun- 
ciations of the wicked malign ants whose 
wrong doings had caused 30 years of 
miserable turmoil, grked upon it as 
ungenerous cruelty to a fallen foe. I 
would have none of it. 

"That year the eleCions were exceed- 
ingly close. The campaign opened with 
the acceptance on both sides of the fact 
that the Solid South would furnish, by 
its usual methods of fraud and violence, 
138 of the 185 electoral votes necessary 
to elect the Democratic candidate. It 
would require the most skilful manage- 
ment by the Republicans to prevent him 
gaining the remaining 50 in New York, 
Connecticut or Indiana. 

"The coterie of which I was a repre- 
sentative saw our opportunity. Doing 
cur duty as R'^publicans we would at- 
tract no attention— receive no thankp. 
Transferring ourselves to the Democracy 
we would make a flurry, gain notoriety, 
acd demonstrate oui selves to be men of 
great consequence. I have already told 
you enuf of our characteristics to indi- 
cate to you our choice. We threw our- 
selves into the arms of the Democracy. 
"A. few fitful weeks followed, chiefly 
marked in my remembrance by the ex- 
travagant eulogiums of us in the Demo- 
cratic press as young men of the 'most 
magnificent promise' (the promise to 
vote fer Hancock being that doubtless 
referred to) and by a perfect nightmare 
of undesirable acquaintances, each one 
of whom extended to us congratulations 
upon our joining in the great work of 
Wiping Out Sectional Bitterne.-s— con- 
gratulations so unpleasantly flavored 
with cheap whisky and poor cigars, as 
to disagree with us as badly as the 
nouns and verbs of their decomposed 
English did with each other. 

"The end was that Hancock n 



elected by a small majority and that 
msjirity. there was no doubt.wae our gift 
to the Democracy. 

" 'We have begun our political life 
most gloriously,' I said to one of my 
cronies the morning after the result waa 
announced. ' It is a beginning com- 
mensurate with our exceptional abili- 
ties.' 

" 'Yes,' he returned. ' The country 
owes us a debt of gratitude, which it can 
only repay by honoring us forever as the 
young men who had the sagacity and 
moral courage to Wipe Out Sectional 
Bitterness.' 

"My heart smote me somewhat as I saw 
the paralyzing fear that seized upon 
business men at the knowledge that the 
country was once more in the hands of 
the Democracy, but I laughed this off 
as a bit of old fogyism that would soott 
pass away. " 

CHA.PTER XL 

THE FALL. 

"A. few evenings after the election the 
voters had a jollification meeting. My- 
self and friend — in the abundance of our 
self conceit — imagined that this was ea- 
pecially meant for us, as the ones whose 
agency in securing the triumph was most 
marked and potent. I and they pre- 
pared our minds to bear with proper 
modesty the blushing honors that would 
be heaped thickly upon us. I elaborated 
for the occasion a speech of wonderful 
ornateness, in which the grandeur of 
Wiping Out S.ecliODal Bitterness was ad- 
mirably illustrated by copious references 
to the histories of Greece and Rome. 
That at the conclusion of the mighty 
forensic effort the enraptured audience 
would carry me on their shoulders to my 
resiaecce, accompanied with a magnifi- 
cent torchlight and brass band 
pageant, seemed eo probable an 
event that I expended the last remnant 
of my allowance in providing a supply 
cigars and beveiages with fhich to re- 
gale my admirers at my father's house. 

'The evening found me on my way to 
the m(.'eting attired in a faultless evening 
costume, and nervously running my 
magnificent periods over in my mind. 

"Such a sight as greeted me on arriv- 
ing at the place of meeting. The yelling 
hooting, turbulent m9b gathered there 



/ 



CONFESSIONS OF A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 



eiibraced every man in the community 
who was obnoxious to it, who was carry- 
ing on a more or less open war against 
society, and who was offensively re- 
garded by bis neighbors. They were all 
present — all intoxicated with the victory 
which they took to be their personal suc- 
cess: all arrogant and domineering as 
such people are in the moment of 
triumph, all carried away with the ex- 
pectation of the plunder they were about 
to gain. 

"They reeled and staggered and 
shouted about in the murky smoke 
beaten down from the blazing oil barrels 
by the soughing November winds; at 
one instant the ruddy flames lighted up 
their distorted visages with an unearthly 
glare, then they faded into the obscurity 
of a pall of smoke. I shuddered. It 
seemed to be too unreal for anything but 
a horrible dream. 

"Near one of the flres a rude platform 
was erected for the accommodation of 
the orators of the evening. I could 
hardly restrain an expression of intense 
disgust as I saw seated thereon as Chair- 
man of the meeting the man who, of all 
others, was most distasteful to the com- 
munity, for against him as a chie? doer, 
was charged all the crimes that made 
the Democracy odiims during the pre- 
ceding quarter of a century. As Deputy 
United States Marshal under Buchanan 
he had ferreted out from her hiding 
place m the house of a kindly old 
QU'iker, a beautiful young quadroon 
who had fled from Kentucky because 
her master— whom she so much resem- 
bled in face, as to quite explain some 
incidents in the life ol her handsome 
mulatto mother— bad sold her under the 
diBtresE of a gambling debt, to add to 
the completeness of a rich old Louisiani- 
an's harem. Rtvolver in hand he had 
dragged the manacled and shrieking girl 
thru the streets of the Village, and, not 
content with wrecking her young life, 
he had \i3ited the fearful penalties of 
the Fugitive Slave Law upon the human 
Quaker, sending him to the Peniten- 
tiary, his htart broken wife to the grave, 
and his impovtribhea children l» 
eat the bread of charity in the 
hemes of strangers. More than 
one treacherous assault against returned 
soldiers, more than one midnight con- 



spiracy as a Son of Liberty had been 
charged against him during the War; 
more than one criminal intrigue to ren 
der its results abortive had been laid at 
his door since the close of the struggle, 
but he had still lived on as a monument 
to the mercy and long f uffering of the 
community. Now his face, which, ever 
since I could remember him, had borne 
the scowl of the baflitd conspirer, 
gleamed with the light of triumph. As 
I approached he concluded the speech he 
makirg to the applauding crowd with: 

" 'And now, gentlemen, let me once 
more congratulate you upon our grand 
success, which intures the Wiping Out 
of Sectional Bitterness, the return of the 
Country to tne control of its proper 
rulers— the Democratic party, and a re- 
storation of the good old days of Frank- 
lin Pierce and James Buchanan' — 

•' 'When Treasury-plundering was a 
profession, and nigger hunting a gentle- 
manly practice.' said a rash Republican 
in thecruvvd, who was promptly knockt 
down and kickt into insensibility. 

" 'All that we have long desired, strug- 
gled for, suffered for,'— continued the 
chairman, 'frequently despaired of at- 
taining, is now coming to pass. The 
triumph of Jeffersonian principles is as- 
sured' — 

" 'That's it. — no more taxes on whisky,' 
interrupted a voice. 

" 'No, — nor onterbacker,' said another. 

" 'An' naygurs to be shtopt from vot- 
ing,' said a third, whom I recognized as 
a man whose naturalization papers I had 
completed the day before the election. 

" 'An' be put back on the plantations 
where they belong, instid of comin' up 
here to take away the work from poor 
men,' saidafourtn, whose support from 
the time whereof the memory of man 
ran not to the contrary, was rubbed out 
of an unyielding wash board by his wife's 
calloused knuckles. 

"1 recoiled from the sentiments and 
shrank from the persons of the meeting, 
but a thot of my speech urged me for- 
ward again. 

"The Chairman caught sight of me, 
and divining the purpose with which I 
had attended the meeting, said with a 
sinister leer: 

" 'Gentlemen, our talented young 
friend, Madoc Lawrence — who joined 



6 



LECLFNE AUD FALL OK THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC 



U8 at the eleventh hour, it is true, but 
still joined us — will now address you.' 

"I aecenc'cd the platform, and pulled 
from the breast of my swallow-tailed 
coat, a dainty white handkerchief, which 
I flourished gracefully to conceal the 
agitation I felt at the awful moment of 
my beginning of my speech. 

•' 'Gentlemen,' said I, 'm thus celebrat- 
ing the inauguration of the process of 
Wipirg Out all Sectional Bitterness— I 
am cons trained to say'— 

"But I was not constrained to say: 
rather constraired to stop, by a babel of 
derisive and indignant clamor that rose 
from the mob. My faithful stenographer, 
who was Instructed to takedown all that 
he heard when I r-gan my speech, read 
me the next day, from his notebook as 
fellows: 

•' 'Fwat thedivil is that spalpane doin' 
up there? Does he think we wants to lis- 
ten to the loikes o' him, who hasn't been 
in the party long enuf to get rid of his 
Black Ablishun luks. ' 

" 'Of course he wants an ofllce. That's 
all he came into the party for. He thinks 
his glib tongue will get him something, 
and so cheat some poor man who's not 
had a taste of office for 20 years. ' 

" 'He's an Ablishionist and a Yankee at 
heart; he's been eddicated at a Yankee 
college. His lather was a nigger lovin' 
Yankee soldier, and helped kill decent 
Dimmycrats. There's no truatin' nim. 
Let him take a oack seat for 20 years as 
we've done.' 

" 'The idea of that kid- gloved whip- 
ster trying to lecture us Democrats, 
who've fcetncutia the storm and cold 
since Biicbauan's time. Run him oS 
the platform. Shut nim up.' 

" 'Send him home to his mother.' 

" 'Put him in his little trundle bed.' 

" 'L-it bim get out of the way for one 
of the real old sort.' 

" Dry up, you Yankee. Sit down. 
There's no i flices here for you.' 

"There were other exclama'ions that, 
having no word signs ^or,he had written 
in the photetic and jumbl.d together 
manner of his art, and which appeared 
now in this myslifying way : 

" 'Basthidhedwidasquash!' 

" 'Ch'ick'imwui 0(i im lioodvinobl' 

" 'HirtahaU nt> g "ell^a^es'l !' 

" '6(im"h')r)y8'ull.'iUinoutbfullof80ft80- 
apardstfjphis 4b ' 



"I began to doubt whether my great 
work in Wiping Out Sectional Bitterness 
was fully comprehended by these men. I 
would wait an instant, and seek an op- 
portuiiity to explain, but had scarcely 
formed this resolution, when an egg that 
should have either been hatcht or eaten 
some time during the Summer, landed 
with coDPioerable force on the snowy ex 
panse of shirt bosom that covered my 
beating heart. Closely following it, came 
a turnip that struck my shining silk hat 
from my hand, and ruined 
its sweet symmetry forever. Some one 
tried to pull me from the platform by 
one tail of my coat. The fabric was not 
equal to the demand upon it, and tore to 
the collar, i finally made my escape and 
fled to my home, wnere lying on the sofa 
groaning in anguish of spirit, I could 
hear tne shouts, and yells and oaths of 
the intoxicated jollifieis; could hear 
them when they resolved themselves into 
a riotous torchlight procession that 
marched around the Town, to halt in suc- 
cession before the dwellings of each of 
their prominent political opponents and 
taunt them 'with gibes and execrations, 
offensive songs — perhaps break their win- 
dows, and yell threats of hanging the ob- 
jects of their dislike to lamp posts. " 



CHA.PrERin. 

BEFORE THE INATJQUItA.TION. 

•'I was a long time in rallying from the 
cruel blow which my self love had re- 
ceived. There is no more bitter anguish 
than that which accompanies the first 
thrusting into a young man's soul of the 
iron of a public humiliation. 

"I had to bear all my anguish alone. 
I had cut myself off completely from the 
sympathy of my father and his friends, 
and I was not then so sure of your grand- 
mother's affections as to believe that they 
would stand the test of my being made 
a general laughing stock. I was sure I 
had lost her, too, in the crush of hopes 
and wreck of reputation of that most 
wretched night, and the pangs of rejected 
love were added to my other distress. 
But she eventually found means of mak- 
ing me understand that there was no 
necessity for utter despair. This was 
the first gl^am of hope that came to 
lighten my desolatio'i. 

Mtlast the hurs that had set heart and 



\ 



CONFESSIONS OF A REPENTANT rOLITICIAN. 



brain to thmbbiag with agony calmed 
down until I became able to take notice 
of somelhiog else offside my lacerated 
feelings. 

"Then I wasastonisht at the oppressive 
feelirgof stagnation everywhere The 
dread of some fearful intangible misfor- 
tune that might ingulf the country was 
written in every business man's face I 
learned that business has no politics; 
commerce no partlzanship, for without 
regard to party, men sa d with troubled 
look, as tht-y clotsed iheir shutters, or 
extinguished the fires in their 'urnaces: 

" 'The Democrats are agiin in power. 
We must wait and see what they intend 
doing.' 

"The two years preceding the election 
had been a period of marvelous prosper- 
ity. The wise management of Resump- 
tion by the Republican party had laid a 
firm foundation upon which the active, 
energetic people had built a magnificent 
structure of material greatness. Every- 
where the fruitful land smiled in the hus- 
bandman's face the glad smile that rip- 
pled with tlie sweet Summer winds over 
the billowy acres of golden headed 
wheat; everywhere the serried corn 
waved its silky banners, and rattled its 
stiff blades, whispering all the while as- 
surances of a plenty beyond the fertility 
of the Land of Goshen. Everywhere 
the roar and the rush of the heavily laden 
train answered the cheerful hum of the 
busy factory. Every wind that blew 
wafted toward distant ports great white- 
winged fleets deeply laden with our wares 
and merchandize. In every mart where 
men chaffered, the coined gold chinkt 
and clinkt as it was paid out in a swiftly 
flowing stream for the choice products of 
our skilled handiwork and teeming acres. 
Everywhere our people's nostrils drank 
in the exhilarating atmosfere of active 
prosperity— -everywhere the working- 
man's child laughed in glee at the plenty 
with which it was surrounded. 

"Upon this joy and contentment the 
result of the election came like 
the first breath of a pestilence in 
a crowded City. The whirring 
wheels stood still everywhere; the 
locomotives rusted in their stalls; the 
sea-coing ships chafed and fretted against 
the deserted docks; the workingman's 
cjiild grew hungry eyed. 



"The only gladness to be seen was iu 
the faces of the expectant place holders. 

"My mention of this depressing out- 
look to a Democratic politician, was 
met by an assurance that it was all 
the work of Radical alarmists, and 
would disappear after Inauguration 
Day, and the party once fairly graspt 
the reins of power. 

"So passed the ineffably dreary Winter 
of 1880 81, the stagnation becoming al- 
most deadness as the fateful iTourth of 
March drew near. 

"Toward the last of February I went on 
to Washington to be present at the inau- 
gural ceremonies. 

"i found the Capitol in the possession 
of the most ravenous swarm that earth 
has seen gathered together since the Van- 
dals sackt Rome. 

"The hotels throbbed and shook with 
the ponderous tread and explosive oaths 
of the congregated 'big men' of the 
party. The boarding houses swarmed like 
ant hiHa with the smaller fry of place-hun- 
ters. The saloons were bedlams ; the side- 
walss Democratic mass-meetings in per- 
petual session. Up and do wn the avenues, 
hither and yon on every thorofare the 
endless stream of wolfishly hungry men 
surged and swept, whirled and eddied. 
It was as if human beings had become 
seized with some such a mania for a 
concerted devastating foray as history 
tells us sometimes infects all the rats, or 
squirrels, or lemmings in a country, 
when they gather together by billions, 
and leave their line of march as blasted 
and bare as if seared by the lightning. 

"There were pug nosed, heavy-jawed 
Tammanyites, clothed in colors like 
those 0* a Dutch wagon; with jewelry 
like the ornaments of a locomotive, and 
speakiog a slang enricht by the thief jar- 
gon of all Europe. There were sallow, 
long haired Southerners, lean as the 
Seven Kine in Joseph's vision; with om- 
inous protuberances in their butternut 
jeans garb over their rig ,t h'ps. They 
moved together with an elbow touching 
precision tnat told eloquently of four 
years service in the field, and 15 more in 
Rifle Clubs and Ku Klux Klans. There 
were the Western Copperheads— the old 
Sons of jLibeity and Illinii-short staiured, 
vacant-faced, sneak eyed; their breath 
laden with pjor whisky, m-ide infinitely 



8 



LKCLIME AND F^LL 0^.' THE AMERICAN KEPUiJLTC. 



•worse by vaporization thru their mouths 
along with other unpleasant odors and 
vile lanf^uage. 

"Tuese were tbey who formed the 
swarmiog oultitude that ranged over the 
City and gloated upon all things tlfey 
saw as newly recovered possessions 
which had long been unjustly withheld. 
I can net describe to you the insolence 
with which they assumed possession. 
You can not possibly imagioe it. Every- 
thing they Siw, and che emoluments 
thereof they considered theirs. 

"They swarmea thru the Departments, 
from the moment the doors were opened 
in the morning untd they closed at night, 
regarding everything — the clean, com- 
fortabld rooms, the pleasant windows, 
the appa'ently well ealaried, easy- work- 
ing clerkships as their birthright, from 
whicli they had been long and wrongfully 
debarred. 

"I was in one of the Departments one 
day, when the advance of this Army of 
Observation arrived, it was headed by 
a group of rammaoyites under the lead 
cf one of their number — a bummer pol- 
itician, who had been nouriskt upon 
spoils of one kind or another ever since 
he was able to hold a pen or draw a 
salary. 

" 'How manny min hav you in here? 
Wat do they do, and wat sorter pay do 
they git?' he asked of the Chief Clerk, 
in that tone of vulgar masterdom assuoa- 
ed by a traveling saletman of cheap 
clothing in addressing the colored 
waiters in the dining room. 

"The courU'.GU9 Chief Clerk arose with 
Eome difficulty — even 16 years of con- 
stant practice had not given him such use 
of his ari iticial leg as he had of the one he 
lost at Gettysburg — and said: 

•' 'As we are having many such inquir- 
ies, I have prepared this written list, 
which contains all the information you 
require.' 

"The leader took the list and began pe- 
rusing it with labored slowness. Great 
drops of sweat stood out on his brow aad 
his 'hick lips, working in silent sympv 
thy, furmed each letter as he painfully 
recalled its never too familiar form and 
Bemblancti. 

" 'Has as much trnnble with that as if 
it were one of Sitr. Tilden's cypher dis- 
patches,' fcaid a rogui.-'h liiib messenger, 



referring to what was then considered the 
great scandal of ouf history, but which 
ha=< since been dwdrftintounmiudful in- 
significance by the appalling enormities 
that succeeded it, 

" 'From the way his lips move he don't 
seem to have ever had even a speaking 
acquaintance with his letters,' said an- 
other messenger. 

"The man's companions stood by, 
puffing cigars that, like Hamlets uncle's 
offense, were rank and smelled to 
Heaven, stared around and gloated on 
all they saw with watering mouths. 

"'Mickey,' said the leader, as he at 
last finisht the perusal, 'that's de place 
fer ye. Twelve hunnerd a year, an' 
naathink for till do, I'll be bona',' and 
he checkt off one of the places with a 
trailing streak from the wet end of the 
cigar that he used to point it out. 

" 'An' that's fer ye, Jamie Fitzgerald. 
An' that fer ye, Teddy Malone; an' that 
fer ye, Barney O Shaughnessy.' 

"And so on, until each of his follow- 
ers was provided for, and there was a 
check mark of dingy yellow tobacco 
staiu against every place save that of the 
Chief Clerk. 

"This I'll take mesilf. It luks as if the 
juties would just suit a gintlaoaan of me 
abilities, an' ttio twini;y-tiv3 hanaerd a- 
year is be no m tuner o' manes as good 
as I did under Tweed, it's a divilish sight 
better'n I've done lately, an' it'll be 
mighty quare if an indlvijle o' me janius 
don't discover a few chice parkesites 
afore me first year's out." 

" 'But ye've forgotten the leddies, 
Cap'n,' said one of them, removing a 
dirty thumb from the arm hole of his 
vest long enuf to point it in the direc- 
tion of the lady clerks. 

" 'Why, so I hev; so I hev. Gi'me 
the list agin ' 

"More perspiring mental labor was 
called for, and when the leader spoke at 
last it was to parcel out the places as be- 
fore: 

"Tim, yer sister kin hev this " 

"Teddy, your's might take this." 

"And so on, not forgetting in his 
generosity, to reserve the last and best 
morsel for one of his own female friends. 

" 'We'd better go right down to head- 
qu«ters" he Siid, as he concluded, 'an* 
hev the thing dxod suug an' tight at 



CONFESSIONS OP A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 



9 



vvaDSt," saying which their inch thick 
soles clumpt away over the mar- 
ble floors, and gave place to a 
similar platoon of butternut-clad Mis- 
sifsippians who, ag tbey threw back the 
rims of their broad brimmed haisto gaze 
oa the magnificent prospect deluged the 
white marble floor with torrents of to- 
barco spittle. 

"The leader propounded the same 
query to the Cii'f f Clerk as his prede- 
cessor hid, and received a like response. 
Taking the lis' he gazed at it dubiously 
for a minute, and then said: 

" 'I reck n as my eyes air not very 
good, and my spellin's a little spavined 
you'll have to read that fur me. Read 
it slow, and speak up purty peart, for 
one o' my ears is a litUe stiff o' hearin'. 

"He parceled out aU the places among 
tis followers as his New York predeces- 
sor had among his, not forgetting to in- 
clude the ladies, nor to give himself the 
best posi'ioQ, and then he and they 
stalkt noisily away to have their choices 
confirmed at heati quarters. 

•'This is the way it went all day — 
from the moment ttie doors were opened 
in the morning to admit the ravenous 
tide until tbey were closed as flood-gates 
in the evening upon the eager current of 
starving plice- seekers. 

"My he^irt was wrung wi^h the visible 
ancuish of the poor clerks whose means 
of subsistence was being so coarsely 
and unfeelingly parceled out before their 
eyts by these office cormorants. The great 
mass of them were, if men, those who 
bad given their youth and s rengih, fre- 
qutn'ly their heal'h and limbs, to the 
country; if women, those who had given 
the lives of husbands, brothers or fa'hera, 
and theyhadsupp emented ih te greate t 
of gifis by Jong years of faithful and 
f flicient civil service, by which they had 
fondly hoped to win reward in such per- 
mancecy as would be a p^ov'sion for the 
declining years, into which they were all 
rapidly advancing. 

"The faint hope that the Democrats 
would respect their long and faithful 
service and retain them, with wuich they 
buoyed themselves up after the election, 
had given away to tbe grimmest despair 
at the irruption of the^e liordes, from 
whom tlty could expect as little mercy 



as a green cornfield from a sw) rm of 
grasshoppers. 

"With their years and the pbybical 
debility added by their service in the 
Army, difpl^cenoent meant setting their 
feet upon that shard-strewn, flinty path, 
by which Penury conducts men to pau- 
per's graves. They went about their 
accustomed tasks with broken hearts. 
Their nerveless hands almost refused to 
grasp their familiar pens. 

"Iwent to the Capitol grounds, and 
as I entered the enclosure a crowd of 
half-inioxicated Arkansas men reeled in 
from another side, and came to a halt be- 
fere the statue of Lincoln mounted on a 
pedestal. 

" 'Who'n eternal blazes is this marble 
galoot?' said they, staring at the sheeny 
stone with dazed eyes. 

"'Why, me fur a woolly-headed 

nigger, if that ain't old Lincoln himself,' 
said one. 

'"That's a fack! Well, his day an' 
that of hia nigger lovin' crew's done at 
last, thank God! I've a mind ter im 
prove hia beauty by shootin' that right 
eye out. Here goes.' 

"The ready revolver responded to his 
tcTsch, and the ball tore away a great 
flake of marble. 

" 'That's fun,' said another; 'See me 
knock his left eye.' 

" Here's fur his twisted nose.' 

" 'I'll fetch hia right ear.' 

"'An' me his left.' 

"A blue- coated officer of the Capitol 
Police came running up to put a stop to 
the desecration. 

" 'I allers did love to shoot at that uni- 
form,' said a sinister eyed ruffian from 
Pine Bluffs, and his too- well aimed bul- 
let dropt the poor officer dying on the 
sod. 

"When the statue was mutilated out of 
all likeness to its former semblance, 
the enthusiastic crowd that had gather- 
ed around to er joy the sport that had the 
sweetness of long deferred revenge, com- 
pleted the destruction by overthrowing 
it and breaking it into fragments with 
an iron bar. 

This gave the signal for extending the 
woik ot destruction farther, and the 
tumultuous crowd ranged thru the Cap- 
itol, dfcStro3irg every picture, bust and 
siH'.ue of a Repub ican they could find. 



10 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC. 



" Gad, this is the best thing I've sein 
since I saw the Yankees run away from 
BuURun like sheep,' eaida tall Georgian 
by my sice. 'I knew I'd see everj thing 
come out all right before I died There are 
1,500 Yankee cOicers planted on a piece 
o' my land near Macon— old Camp Ssr- 
ghum, you know. I guess they've made 
it pretty rich. I'm goin' to write home 
to day to take down the headstones, and 
clean up the field for a tobacco crop. I 
shouldn't wonder if I should make a 
cou Die o' thousand dollars off that field 
this season.' 

" 'So this is Wiping Out bectional Bit- 
terness,' I said to myself, as I turned 
away with a leaden heart, and walking 
down Pennsylvania Avenue, found my- 
self, before I well knew it, seated in the 
parlor of the National Hotel. The fold- 
ing doors that divided the parlor into two 
rooms were closed, and thru them came 
the sound of voices of men in heated dis- 
cussion in the next room. Suddenly the 
doors were burst open as by some one 
leaning too heavily against them, and the 
whole interior of the room was exposed 
to my view, 

"The sight I saw there was so deeply 
etched into my memory that half a cen- 
tury has not dimmed the sharpness of its 
liaes. 

"Seated oa a chair in the center was 
Gen, Hancock, his fat and usual smugly 
smiling countenance convulsed with dis- 
gust and rage. Around him were gath- 
ered, some standing — some sitting — Fer- 
nando Wood, of New York, Fort Pillow 
Chalmers, and Lamar, of Mississippi, the 
two Blackburns, of Kentucky, Ben. 
Hill, of Georgia, Wade Hampton, of 
South Carolina, and others whose names 
I do not now recall, while in front 
stood Voorhees of Indiana, with every 
vein in his face throbbing almost to 
bursting with passion. Tho I did not 
know his name then, the snatiy suggesi- 
Iveness of his tall, writhing form, the 
flattened head, the baleful, greenish gray 
light of his eyes, the set teeth and half, 
opened lips thru which he hissed his 
words, prepared me for the inform dtion 
afterwards given that he was the greatest 
then living of those vile Copperheads, 
who during the War crawled in the rear 
of our line of-ba'tle, and stung our sol- 
dieis' heels. 



" 'But he is one of my s tanchest sup- 
porters in the State, and does more work 
for me than any dozen others," he was 
sajing, or rather hissing. 

" '1 cannot help that ;"Hancock replied; 
"tvith every d sposition in the world to 
oblige you, it is simply preposterous to 
ask that I must begin my official career 
by the appointment of such a man to the 
command of the new brigade we pro- 
pose to add to the Army. Why, 1 have 
here letters from friends of mine — old 
soldiers in the Army — who say that he 
was a commander in the Knights of the 
Golden Circle, and as such had charge 
of that division of the Sons of 
Liberty that was assigned to the 
duty of capturing the City of In- 
dianapolis and the State oifices, when it 
was proposed to carry Indiana over to 
the Southern Confederacy in the Winter 
of 1864. And see here," and his indig- 
nation flamed to white heat; "just see 
here! Here's a letter from an old friend 
and one of the noblest fellows that ever 
drew sword; who says that this same 
rascal cost him his good right arm, by 
urging some low hounds to shoot him, 
because, when home from the field in 
consequence of a wound received at 
Mission Ridge, he gave some assistance 
in enforciug the draft act.' 

" 'Pity 'twasn't his infernal head, in- 
stead of his arm,' said the sardonic 
Chalmers, and the rest smiled ironically 
at the ridicules! ty of the General's rea- 
sons. 

" 'These things y»u absurdly term of- 
fenses are his highest virtues, for which 
he must be honored and rewarded,' said 
Voorhees — more snakelike than ever in 
act and feature. 

" 'The General forgets that having be- 
come one of Us, he should view things 
from Our s'audpoint," said Fernando 
Wood, pulling his long 'Khite mustache, 
while a mocking smile distorted his 
coarge, almost brutal mouth. "To con- 
tinue to look at things from the angle of 
view he accnstomed himself to during 
the W>ir, and to use such language he 
ha? just employed is very improper; it 
interferes deviously with the great work 
of Wiping Out Sectional Bitterness.' 

" 'But consider what effect this would 
have in the Army,' said Hancock. 
" 'This appointment of a civilian, who 



CONFESSIONS OP A REPENTANT POLITICIAN. 



11 



ha« just employed is very improper; it 
interferes deviously with the great work 
of Wiping Out Bf ctional BiUerness ' 

" But consider what effect this would 
hfl' e in the Army,' said Hancock, 
*' 'This appoiaimeut of a civilian, who 
bas beeii n » tervice, to such a high com- 
inand would be a positive injustice to 
all lower officers, who have earned pro- 
motion, ai.d we could expect them to 
resign in a body." 

•' 'Let 'em resign, ' sneered little Vest, 
of Missouri. "Let 'em resign if they're 
such precious fools to give up their fat 
places. Let 'em resign if they want to; 
for they're a set of Black Republicans 
that've fed long enuf at Government ex- 
pense. We'll be mighty glad to get rid 
of 'em that way, for they're likely to be 
in our road in the future, and we want 
their places for men that we can trust.' 

" 'But I'll not do this," said Hancock, 
doggedly. 'I've yielded to everything so 
far that you've demanded of me. I've 
given up the filling of all the offices to 
you, that you may reward your hungry 
mjrmidOES to Ealiety— if there's enuf in 
God's great world to satisfy a hungry 
Dem'cratic office seeker; I have agreed 
to sign all your bills to appropriate what 
money there is now in the Treasury to 
make internal improvements in the 
South, and for levying increased taxes 
to pay off your claims for damages dur- 
ing the War. But tuere is a point be- 
'yond which I will not go. I will not 
destroy the Army to please you, and I 
■will net load myself down with so much 
odium that the people will hate me.' 

" 'That's it; there's the secret," sneered 
the heavy faced Lamar. 'Afraid of 
hurting his popularity. Like all the 
rest of them. Begins scheming for a 
second term before his first's begun. This 
makt s it necessary to tell you a very 
simple truth which a man who knows 
more of the country's history than he 
learas in the gossip of the barracks, 
would not need to be told. This truth is 
that since the Democratic party made a 
fool of itself in running VanBuren the 
second time, it quit that sort of nonsense 
Four years in the White House, doing 
what is required of him by the party so 
wears a man out with the people, thit tig 
simply absurd to try to catch any votes 
with him again.' 



" 'The bait gets too rank and rusty, 
never can fool the people twice with it,' 
said Wood sententiously. 

•' 'Once more; do >ou refuse to make 
the promise I ask of you?" said Voor- 
hees, whtjse rage was lauued still higher 
by the debate. 

" 'I do,' said Hancock, firmly. 

"Voorhees's long body shrank together, 
like a snake coiling itself for a spring, 
but Hampton waved his hand as a signal 
that he wanted to be heard, and rising he 
supported himself on hia crutch and 
said: 

" 'Gentlemen: Gen. Hancock is labor- 
ing under a delusion that I think I can 
dispel, when all will be right. He imag- 
ines that he has nominated and elected 
himself, and can inaugurate himself. 
This is quite a mistake. He is nothing 
and can be nothing but what we made 
him. A moment's reflection will show 
him this, and that as ne owes everything 
to us, he has nolhing to do but carry out 
our wishes. If he cannot understand 
this, we have the remedy in our own 
hands. We can—" 

'Here seme one c^llpd attention to the 
hitherto unnoticed fact that the doors 
had been forced open and that an out- 
sider was an interested listener. The 
doors were closed, and Hampton contin- 
ued his remarks in so low a tone as to be 
wholly inaudible, except whea he raised 
his voice in the excitement of the pero- 
lation, and then I overheard something 
about ' Beware the fate of Harrison and 
Taylor, who dared stand in our way.' 

"An hour later the meeting broke up 
and as Wood and Blackburn passed by 
me the latter said : 

" 'Ricki worse than a steer, before he 
gave in, didn't he?" 

" 'O, yes," said Wood with a chuckle; 
'they always do. L':rd, whit a time we 
had with Pierce and Buchanan, before 
they'd put their necks into the yoke. 
They were as fractious as s thorobred 
two-year old, but we fetcht 'em finally, 
and you never saw more obedient fellows 
in your life, before their first years were 
up. 'Twill be just so with this chap. 
He's got more beef and buU-headedness 
about him, but not so much real will as 
they had.' 



li 



I/ECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMBKICAN RKPUBLTC. 



CHAPTER IV. 

"ill fares the LAND, to HASTENING ILLS 
A l'Kb;V." 

"Once, while traveUne oa the Mis- 
sippi, 1 Sivv a moat ddight'ul little bit of 
landscape, — a plantation with well tilled 
fields, elegant mansion surrounded by 
choici St flowers, that bloomed with the 
f pu'ent splendor befeottea by rich soil 
and semitropical sKies Babstantial 
buildings protected the plantation's crops 
and machinery, neat cottages sheltered 
the people employed; elegant and rt fined 
men and women sat on the piazzas, 
bright chili ren romped in the pleasant 
shade of grand old trees. A mile away 
the mighty river, swelled to a torrent by 
great rains over the half continent which 
it drained, swept angrily around the long, 
Eeoii circular embankment, that followed 
the bend, and held it back from over- 
flowing the plantation. The -people on 
the piazzas lookt away over swelling, 
surging water and smiled coaddently. 
The levee, raised with iafiaite toll aad 
sacriflce, had piotected their possessions 
for 25 years — this generation could not 
remember when it did not — aad with 
this feeling of security they had gone on 
develo[;irjg their home and plaatalion to 
what it now was. Bit a bright-eyed, 
Silken furred muskrat, equally eager to 
etiablish himself and his in permanent 
comfort, had burrowed in the bank a 
home that according to muskrat ideas 
of architecture was preferable to the 
mansion en the lawn. It had an elegant 
gallery leading down in the water in 
front,and another covered way down the 
back to the artichokes and sweet potato^ 
in the fi-ild. But the next day, 
while tbe people on the piazzas 
Btill lookt at the yellow, turbalent flood 
and smiled, the muskrat and family 
■were seeking a place of safety. The 
water had risen to the nest. It 
was DOW pouring in a thin stream thru 
his covered way down to the field. An 
hour later the hungry river was devour- 
ing the baak like some greai insatiable 
monster, and over the plantation, and all 
the life and beauty and happiness upon 
it, rolled the yellow, merciless tide. 

"As hat muskrat's ambition to pro- 
vide for himself an elevated and com- 
fortable nest was to that levseand planta- 



tion, (o had Hancock's similar ambition 
bten to the country. 

"It was a perfect Missiesippi of Dsmoc- 
racy ihal he let m to fl jod the country — 
a Mississippi at freshet level, muddy, 
slimy and foul, polluted with the gatn- 
erings of a long and vicious course, the 
drainage of sewers, the skimoaings of 
cesspools, the dumpiugs of garbage, 
carrying ih solution all the excreta of 
society, and fljating the noisome, rotting 
carrion of all the frauds and falsehoods, 
and Climes of our century of history— 
an overflow that poisoned all the pure 
wells and springs of private and public 
life. 

"Men escaped as far as possible from 
the noxious flood and waited for it to 
subside. Aias, no olive-leaf- bearing 
dove ever came to announce that glad 
tidings. 

' Deeper and deeper were all traces of 
the happy past buried under the slime 
and sediment. 

"Within a month after Hancock took 
his seat he had fo;c3d up)u him a com- 
plete recognition of the fact that he was 
but the hand and mouth- piece of the 
cabal of arrogant oligarchs who had bot 
him with a price. He was to say what 
they ordered him to say — end nothing 
else; he was to do what they demanded 
of him— and nothing else. He accepted 
the situation. N-jver a man of much 
individuility, or mental initiative; more 
than anything else a lover of per- 
sonal comfort, and the pleasures 
of the dinner table, the club and the 
drawing rocm; ignorant bsyound ex- 
pression of the duties of the Presiden- 
tial oflice. he was wholly unable to grap- 
ple with the determined and able con- 
spirers, of whom he was the figure-head. 
He knew enuf to recognize this and bow 
to it. Occa -ionally, when some of his 
army prejudices were trampled upon he 
would break out into a petulant rebel- 
liop,but hU masters managed him as con- 
spirators always manage their dupes. 
A suggestion of exposure and punish- 
ment of crimes they had already com- 
pelled him to commit, never failed to 
reduce him to submission, and acquies- 
enee in new and gravtr offenses. 

'The Southern Oligarchy that it had 
been in power before the War was again 
supreme, with tenfold more lust of abso- 



CONFESSIONS OF A RBPBNTANT POLITICIAN. 



18 



lute power, and a hundredfold increase 
of knowledge 3f the ways to attain thaD 
end. The histories of A.thens, Rjme and 
Venice had shown them how an oli- 
garciiy can be the most extortionate and 
cruel of despotisms; their o^n processes 
in Mississippi, South Carolina and ether 
Southern States had given them practice 
in the methods thty now meant to apply 
to the whole Nation. Taey knew well 
what they could reckon upon. Their 
own section was — in the slang of tue day 
—'solid' for their schemes, and they 
could rely, as they ever could, upon the 
Nortbtra Copperheads— even as the old 
Oliearchs of Rome and Venice used the 
basest of the plebeians for the subjection 
of their fellows. 

"Toe first act of the Olierarchy was to 
empty the hoarded rail ions in the Treas- 
ury— milJions plac d there by Republi- 
can honesty and flnancial sagacity— into 
their own pockets, thru the flimsy pretext 
of making internal improvements in the 
South, and the payment of Southern 
War Claims called for the issue of several 
hundred billions of bonds. One dollar 
i : h hundred of this thrown to theu* 
Northern a lies, like a bone to a dog, 
kepi them quiet and contented. 

"This gave them all the m -ney they re- 
quired for their designs, and if more 
were needed it could be readily obtained 
by the issue of more bonds, as the credit 
of the. United States was still at the high 
K) a' k where 20 years of Republicanism 
had placed it. From that time forward 
they moved iar.ialy forward to the ful- 
filment of all their designs. 

"The adoption of the system of peon- 
age by the various States gave them es 
complete control of the negros' la^o^, as 
slavery ever did, without the embarrass- 
ments of Slavery in being compelled to 
care for worn out laborers. 

• The attempts of the negros to escape 
from this servitude gave occasion lor 
aiming and organizing as soldiery every 
poor white in the South, to act as guards 
and patrols, and be prepared for future 
cohtiDgencie3. Skeleton regiments wera 
form* dm this way that would fill up to 
two mi'lioa men. Na young white men 
in tb. S »uth who could read and write, 
was without a commission and a salary 
from the Government. 

"Wars were provoked with Spain, 



Mexico and Venezuela on pretexts more 
or less frivolous— that with Venezuela 
being, I believe, because the Hon. Pow- 
hattan BAidwtll Slote, of Virginia, our 
Minister to that Court— had been sum- 
marily and somewhat painfully kickt 
out of a room by a parly of poker-play- 
ers becsufe of the discovery in the Hon- 
orable Gentleman's sleeve of three aces, 
wiiich he had not hiJden with his usual 
ability. Because the Southern soldiers 
were needed at home to guard against 
servile insurrection, the task of uphold- 
ing the National honor was cunningly 
made the duty of the Regular A.rmy,and 
volunteers from the Northern States. 
One half fof the ofB^iers whi had gained 
(jistinction on the Union side during the 
Rebellion died of the wmito at tlie siege 
of Caraccas, and the remainder were 
fearfully decimated in Cuba and Mex- 
ico by fevers that were much deadlier 
than the cannon at Havana or the mus- 
ketry at Vera Crua. 

"Meanwhile the Oligarchs were per- 
sistently pushing forward their schemes 
for making the North as 'solid' for them 
as the South. Fraud and force were 
employed skilfully and constantly. Tissue 
talots judiciously employed in Boston, 
New York, Newark, Pittsburg, Phila- 
delphia and Indianapolis, gave Pennsyl- 
vania, New Jersey, Indiana, New York 
and Massachusetts into their hands, ap- 
parently beyond redemption. 

"Growing bolder and more inaolcnt 
with success, they revived the outrages 
of the old Anil Slavery days against those 
who djired to speak or write against 
them. Many editors were shot at their 
desks, like Owen Lovej y; many minis- 
ters were assailed by rufflins, while still 
wearing their sacred vestments. Hun- 
d'tds of public speakers were driven 
from the platform, tarred aid feathered 
ridden on rails, subjected to every man- 
ner of contumely, and many were killed. 
Every day they riveted the manacles 
ti^'hter around the limbs of Liberty. 
Every day their clutch upon the throat of 
Free Speech became more throttling. 

"The railroads, with their hundreds of 
thcusands of employes, the great corpor- 
ations of all kinds— cowardlv sycophan- 
tic as these awtys are to Power, has- 
tened to place themselves at the feet of 
the Oligarchy, and assist it in its horrid 
work. 



14 



DECLINE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN HUPUBLIC 



"In the meantime the Civil Service of 
the country had become an organizjd 
extortion. The tactics of Tweed hal 
been enJarged to fit the ■whole- Nation, 
and a million of voracious office holders, 
each more greedy and unsatisflable than 
the other, fattened and battened on the 
people's substance. 

"At last endurance ceased to be a vir- 
tue, and the people of the North rose in 
a tempest of wrath, to extirpate the men 
whose gyves galled every limb." 

" 'Aha, my friends, we have you now.' 
I heard Wade Hampton say with that 
Mephistopheiian glee characteristic of 
him when his plots mature. ' Tou are 
Rebels now. We thot we'd goad you in- 
to it at last. You sowed in the wind in 
1861-3; you'll reap in the whirlwind in 
1885.' 

"The oligarchy had anticipated this, 
and made the fullest p'eparations for it. 
Instantly the skeleton r gimenta of the 
Seuth were filled up to their maximum, 
and were on the march, While the peo- 
ple of the North, who had seiz'jd a 
couple of arsenals and killed a few of 
the most obnoxious of their oppres- 
sors, were holding war meetings to 
gather funds, and determine on a 
plan of operations, the Virginian troops 
had hurried across into Pennsylvania 
and occupied the whole of the narrow 
strip of country between Pittsburg 
and Lake Erie, thus cutting off complete- 
ly all communication between the East 
and the West. They were immediately 
reinforced by regiments which had been 
secretly organized among the disaffected 
miners of Pennsylvania and Ohio, and 
without much trouble they made their 
position across the highway of the Na- 
tion impregnable. At the same time 
fleets *f improvised gun boats which had 
bten assembled at Memphis, Louisville, 
and 6t. Louis, pusht out up the Missouri, 
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and brot 
Cincinnati, Pittsburg and St. Louis 
under their guns, and cut off communi- 
cations between the east and west sides 
of the Mississippi and Missouri. A sim- 
ilar fleet appeared on the Lakes, and dis- 
tributed i'st^K 80 as to threaten BuiTalo, 
Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago and 
Milwaukee with heavy guns. The Sons 
of Liberty in Indiana— fully armed and 
equipt— fcprang to arms at the first 



signal from Washington, took 
possesfioi of all the railroads, 
and strategic points in the State, harried 
the people of Ohio, Michigan and Illi- 
nois with raid*, and prevented all co- 
operation between them. In like manner 
the Missouri guerillas appeared in great 
force along the borders of Kansas and 
lowa.and menaced the defenseless Towns 
with destruction. The hoodlums of New 
York City— one hundred thousand strong 
— who had been organized beforehand, 
fell upon their old enemies in the coun- 
try side, like the robber Hubs upon the 
peaceful inhabitants of Panonia, and 
smote and spoiled them as far up the 
Hudson as West Point, where they were 
checkt and turned back with great 
slaughter by a concentration of the en- 
raged inhabitants. 

"New England was the only section 
that had foreseen the struggle and made 
ready for it. As the people of these six 
States had not approved of the Venezue- 
lan, Cuban and Mexican wars, into fight- 
ing which the people of the rest of the 
North had been artfully duped, they 
still retained their officers and soldiers 
who had graduated in war during the 
Rebellion, and who now leavened and 
seasoned the militia Regiments which 
had been organized and armed in anti- 
cipation of the crisis. 

"At the outbreak of the trouble Maine 
sent 15 regiments, Vermont 4, New 
Hampshire 6, and Rhode Island 2, to 
joinMassachusetta's 30 on theConnecticut 
River front. 

"But they were outflankt by the great- 
ly superior forces of the South, aided by 
thof.e from Ne n York City, brot to a 
stand on the plains about Willimautic 
and there beaten so overwhelmingly, 
that the Southern troops marcht directly 
into Boston, blew up Bunker Hill 
monument, burned Faneuil Hall, con- 
verted the Old Sjuth Church into a 
Hospital, the State House into a Military 
Prison, levied an indenmiiy fine of a 
hundred million dollars on State street, 
and appointed Robert Toombs, Military 
Governor of the City, whose first act 
was to order in force an exact duplicate 
of Ben, Butler's orders at New Orleans, 
and his next to hang Wendell Phillips 
for 'making a seditious speech.' 

"Numerous severe engagements were 



CONFESSIONS OF A KSPBNTAHT POLITICIAN. 



15 



fought bet v^een the forces of Oligarchy, 
and tae hastily gathered levies of Ohio, 
Michigaa, Wiaconsin, Iowa, Minnesota 
and Kansas, but thothe latter showed 
much spirit and determination, their de- 
feat was inevitable from the first, as 
without training and experienced leaders 
they could not cope successfully with an 
enemy suptrior in numbers who had 
both, who began the conflict with such 
poaseseion of all the strategic points, as 
rendered co- operation between any two 
States impossible. Besides this the 
Southerners had an immense advantage 
in the active assistance of the old Copper- 
Lead element which everywhere — except 
in Iowa and Kansas, was a formidable 
minority of the population, and no 
No. them man went to battle without 
fearing quite as much fear for his home 
and his kinsfolk from the enemy he left 
in the rear as he did for himself from the 
enemy in his front. 

"Within a year after the inception of 
hostilities there was a Southern garrison 
in every Northern Town, and Southern 
tax gatherers were knocking at every 
man's door, while these defeated people, 
their business ruined, their energy gone, 
lay helpless and sullen beneath the feet 
of their arrogant conquerors. 

"For ten years that weighed like the 
night-mare this continued. Each year 
was worse than its predecessors; each 
made the yoke under which they groaned 
heavier and more galling, but even this 
was not sufficient to whoU} des'^roy the 
spirit of the people, who began to exercise 
their ingenuity in making the best of the 
situation. They learned the lesson of 
adaptation to circumstances by which the 
people of the East manage to live, and 
thrive under the organized pillage of the 
Turkish Government, but just so soon as 
a faint gleam of hope came from this 
direction, it was sUfled by a new form of 
danger. The conspirators began— as 
conspirators of ihs kind always have 
done since the world began— a bitter 
quarrel among themselves over the divis- 
ion of the spoils, and soon they were 
turning their arms against each other, as 
savagely as centuries before the succes- 
Bors of Alexander, or the Consuls and 
Proconsuls and Generals of the decaying 
Roman Empire did. 

"California was the 4rst to break away, 



and after slaughtering the army sent to 
reduce to obedience, in the Coo che to pa 
Pass, was allowed to withdraw and es- 
tablish an independent republic, with the 
rest of the States of the Pacific Slope. 
Thea Texa« houfed her Lone Star Flag 
again, and dragged under its folds A.ri- 
z na and New Mexico. Fernando Wood 
and John Kelley revived the project 
broached by the former in 1861 and made 
New York a free City, with the Harp 
of Erin and the Sunburst, as its flag. 
New Orleans followed this example, and 
declared itself to be the Venice of 
America. The Germans of St. Louis, 
wearied out with the rapacity of the 
"Pukes" forming the controlling element 
of the population of the interior of Mis- 
souri, proclaimed their City free and 
independent— a new Frankfort-on-the- 
Main. 

"Vorhees resurrected iis old idea of 
a Northwestern Confederacy, to include 
the States between the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Rivers and the Lakes, with Indi- 
ana at the head. There was no difficulty 
in detaching these from the rest of the 
crumbling Nation, but the politicians 
took advantage of the Secession to carry 
it still farther and make separate and 
individual sovereignties of each State, ♦' 
and this was followed everywhere else, 
except in New England, which took 
advantage of the troubles to drive out 
their oppressors and form a Confederacy 
of itself, which, with the California Con- 
federacy, is LOW the only prosperous 
remnant of the grand old Natiori. 
Nor did the process stop with 
the separation into States, for the 
old time feuds between different por- 
tions of the same States broke out 
with intensified vigor. The Eastern 
Shore sloughed ofE from the rest of 
Maryland; "TideAvater Virginia" and 
"Middle Virginia," separated with a 
sharp struggle. The old fight between 
the Low Country and Up Country, 
North Carolinians could only be satisfied 
by a separation. South Carolina split 
into three parts; Georgia into two, Ten- 
nessee into East, Middle and West Ten- 
nessee; Texas into five States, and so on, 
until now, as you know, we have so 
many different States and Territories and 
Confederations that even the geographers 
can not keep track of them, and their 



16 



IKCLINK AND FALL OF THE AMEEICAN liKPUBLIC. 



boubdaries, sizes and shapes are as shift- 
ing as the clouds of the sky. No man 
koows one month where the boundaries 
of his State will be the next. Every am- 
bitious dem pog, every bra wlinp cross- 
roads politician; every strong armed ad- 
verturer carves out for himstlf an inde 
pendent dominion of as large proportion 
as he can grasp. Our politics now is a 
Btiuggle be ween these conducted on the 
old piinciple of 

"Let him get who has the power, 
And let him keep who can." 

"Whereof old war was a thing of in- 
frequent occurrence, and conducted in 
remote regions, it is now an annual, 
thing, and we fight our neighbors almost 
on our own; door steps. In these in- 
testine jars, these struggles of Counties 
and f^itif-s wUh ea^-h o'Vpt, trade, com- 



merce, manufactures, learning, art — 
everything that mate a people great, 
have disappeared; ova young men are 
cut off before their beards are grown, and 
we are daily sinking in the scale of civili- 
zation toward the level of the nomad who 
dwtlle in bis camel's hair tent. 

"Heaven tas punisht me terribly for 
the indiscretivon «f my youth by prolong- 
ing my life, that I mi^ht experience 
every evil that my folly assisted so much 
to biing upon my beloved country. T 
feel that it can have no obj , ct in further 
prolonging my suffering, and that it 
must in mercy soon take me hence. 

"Wht!n I am gone I want you to have 

inscribed upon my tombstone as my sole 

epitaph, that like O'hello I was 

"One whose hand 
Like the base Jur<<^an threw a pearl away 
Eicl1^r than bH his tribe " 



Nasby Pamphlets "Andersonvil 



55 



5 

A STORY OF SOUTHERN PRISONS. 



The latest political sensation is the Blade's new 

NASBY CAMPAIGN PAMPHLETS 

of 24 pages each, neatly and beautifully printed, 
filled wiib capital bumoroxis illustrations, and 
juBt the 0, ing to iauKh over with a friend or to 
convert a D^piocrAt. No.'s 1 and 2 are now 
ready. No. 3 will shortly be announced. No. 
1, entitled 

The Democratic John Bunyan 

presents the visions of Hancock's Administra- 
tion, ab viewed prophetically by the Parson In 
a series of ten dreams wiiich befell him in the 
after-dinner hour. No 2 is 

Nasby as a Banker^ 

or the History of the "Onlimlt«dTrU8tand Con- 
fidence Company," republished in the series, at 
the numerous and repeated requests of per- 
sons In all parts of the country. The Onlimiteii 
Trust and Confidence Company, an institution 
established during the Husb times for the man- 
ufacture and circulation of paper money, 
aOordH a telling sarcasm on lae fallacies and 
vaparlesof Inflation. 

Tliene pamphimx will he nnnt by mail, post- 
paid, to any addPRRR. nn rnpnlnt of 10 cents 
each, or three for 25 cents. News dealers may 
order 'hem by erpress, charges to follow, at 
f C.50 per 100 copies. Address, 



By JOHN McELROY. 



THE BLADE. 



Toledo, Ohio. 



The Most Successful Book of 
this Quarter of a Century. 



This Book, "which has already met with a sale 
wliiun i-< hiuiply astonishing, is a story of in- 
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sol-iier in a 15 month'-' sojourn in tlie Rebel 
Military PrisO'.s at Richmoud, ApdersonviUe, 
Savani ah, Millen. Biachsne-r and Florence. It 
is profu-ely iU^lSt^at^d, arjd its vivid correct- 
ness is at ^stPd by U' aHy 'j.OOO letters from sol- 
diers iu all parts of the coimtry. 



THE STRTHiOLBS OF NA§IBY— 

The Complete Letters of PETROLEUM V. 
Ni8«Y, from IbBO to the Kaiiflca'ion of 
the lath Amendment. lUustra ed bv Thos. 
^as^. 000 Largo rajres. Price, 83 00. 

BIBLE BIOGRAPHY— 

A Complete Biography of all the Prinoipal 

Characte s in \\\k bibio froHi Adam down. 
With an Irtr duction by tlieR.-v HENivV 
WARD HEECHER. Prof use ly Ulustrated. 
600 Pages. Price, $3.00. 



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